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"Left-vs.-Right" is not the only false paradigm!

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Author Topic: "Left-vs.-Right" is not the only false paradigm!  (Read 6582 times)
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Bad Penny
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« on: August 31, 2010, 03:17:38 am »

GeoLib:

I think you have me wrong.

I'm not really an Austrian-Schooler; when it comes to fiat currency, I'm pretty much of a Lincoln Greebacker, while I keep in mind the crippling deflation here in the American Colonies which prompted Queen Anne's monetary reforms (overseen by none other than the great Sir Christoper Wren, Surveyor-General to the Crown at the time).  The gold sovereign (nominally 1 pound, actually  he e closer to one guinea) was, essentially, worth one pound sterling, which, in turn, being roughly 90% of 1/2 troy oz Au, is roughly tquivalent of a current US Au bullion round of US$10 face value).  My point is, the money supply has to remain FLEXIBLE: just enough fiat currency generated to counter growth-limiting deflation of asset-backed currencies during periods of economic growth, and just enough debt instruments to generate effective deflation (as, in a properly managed economy, money pledged against the future is removed from current circulation) when faith in the future gives way to uncertainty and fear, and something needs to pull all those fiat notes out of circulation (so, let's make those fiat notes redeemable at par, not only in satisfaction of taxes, but for purchase of debt instruments, while metal-backed notes are redeemable for the same only at a drastic discount).  (Ouch!  All this thinking is making my little head hurt!!!)  How to make sure that the debt instruments do not, themselves, become currency?  Give them super-low interest rates, enough to turn them into reasonably certain guarantors of principal repayment (at or near the scheduled redemption date), without enough income potential to make them attractive to speculators, nor to maintain their principal value until the scheduled redemption date (what I call the "Vintage Bond Syndrome").  Obviously, the vintage bond syndrome doesn't happen absent some degree of inflation, but, sometimes, a little bit of inflation can foster economic growth.  What I'm talking (actually writing) about there is a tightly managed monetary policy, fine-tuned to economic reality, without need for recourse to major fiscal policy adjustments (like WARS!!!!!).

As far as taxes are concerned, my statement concerning the standard of living earned by the working class by means of the sale of their labor on the market stands by itself, and, although I obviously believe that any level of taxation levied against working class wages should never be allowed to infringe upon the standard of living as I have described it, I do believe that a modicum of taxation against working class wages gives the working class the tremendous advantage of being able to state, in any public forum: "I'm a tax-paying citizen!!!"  (Let's allow the taxation of wages, BY STATES AND MUNICIPALITIES, NOT BY THE US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, PROHIBITED BY THE US CONSTITUTION!!!) within the strict limits which I have proposed.) So far as concerns the land-owning reactionaries, what does land ownership mean in this day of tiny little suburban house-lots as opposed to the marketable skills of the working class?  And what is the value of a little lot owned by some office worker as opposed to the obvious estate of the small businessman, who rents both his store and his apartment, but who sacrifices any hope of leisure time in order to properly run his small business?  I'm a lawyer: what do I know of the absolutely necessary profession of coal mining?  In a city where I once lived, I once taught inner-city school children in a school whose pediment bore the legend: "He who hath a trade hath an estate.".  (This being well into the process of the de-industrialization of the US, this school was no longer a trade school.)  (Hey: I once took the US Public Broadcasting System's "60's Radical Quiz", which predicted (actually, post-dicted) that I would one day teach in an inner-city school system!)  So, I would adopt the idea that the skills of the working class (known as "mechanics" in the laws of my own state of Rhode Island) constitutes a propertied estate sufficient to allow, not only suffrage, but the fullest possible participation of the working class in the political life of the Republic.  Considering the guaranteed income, I agree with the basic idea, although I would allow differential treatment between "delinquent public charges" (i.e., those who are public charges by choice), and "non-delinquent public charges" (i.e., the disabled, the elderly, widows and widowers with children, and other sad cases).  The latter should be granted the franchise and all that goes with it, the former should be granted a clear and specified pathway by means of which they might gain the franchise, but not automatic franchise.

Here, I must say that I misspoke when I made my statement concerning the "living wage": I should have said:  "I definitely agree with the idea of a social safety net, and even more with the idea of a living wage that allows the common working man to live a life sufficient to reflect the social respect which he has earned by means of the civic responsibility he has borne through his labor, and to allow him sufficient leisure time to develop his intellectual, artistic, and/or craftsmanship skills to the utter extent of his talent."

Finally, the "social safety net", so far as the US still has one, must be seen within the total US context of desire on the part of the state to destroy the family and to romanticize the criminal lifestyle (which enriches the prison-industrial complex while guaranteeing sales of government-imported drugs), which definitely involves the "poverty pimps" of the government bureaucracy, whose jobs would disappear without the micro-management of the lives of the poor, which, in combination with the romanticizing  of the underclass lifestyle through the media, prepares the entire population for state invasion of every aspect of their personal lives.  So, I, too, support the idea of the guaranteed income, which would kick in before the person or family has slid into irrecoverable poverty (as is currently the case with the US system), and would allow the recipient to spend his money on the necessities of life, or on his addictions.

Cheers!
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We're going only forwards!

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